


hello my old heart

by noahfronsenburg



Category: Final Fantasy I
Genre: Canon Compliant, Courtly Love, F/M, Implied Possession, Parallels, Requited Unrequited Love, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 23:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noahfronsenburg/pseuds/noahfronsenburg
Summary: “Lady,” he says.“Sir,” she replies.





	hello my old heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FireEye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/gifts).



> happy yuletide!! this request absolutely gave me a suckerpunch to the Feelings in an absolutely massive way, i had been unprepared for just how much nostalgia that this game could make me feel. apparently....so much. so im share those feelings with you.
> 
> title from [hello my old heart](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/ohhellos/hellomyoldheart.html) by the oh hellos

Garland’s shoulders have not yet grown used to the chafing his armor and chainmail provide the day that he stands before the Princess to be knighted. He is afraid to look at her too closely, to gaze straight-on, because she will see the embarrassment in his eyes, the fear that she will see through, into him, inside his nascent feelings that he knows are pointless, worthless. But he stands before her, and she sets the blade upon his shoulder, and bids him rise, and when he stands, he looks into her eyes.

And looks into her eyes.

And she looks back into his.

 

 

On every fourth watch, he is stationed beneath her window, in the garden. It is a quiet post; one that is well-coveted by many other knights on the rota. They all mostly like the opportunity to drop off, laze around. It gets them pulled, reassigned elsewhere.

Garland finds that when he is stationed beneath the Princess’ window, he can sometimes hear her reading aloud. Two stories down he cannot pick out individual words, but he can enjoy the lilting arc of her voice. Sometimes, he leans his head back against the stones of the wall, and closes his eyes so he can focus on them better. Wonder what she reads.

One day, she drops her book out the window, and he bends to pick it up. He hears the rustles and rush of her footsteps, and she bursts out the door beside him just as he looks up from the ground.

He kneels at her feet, his hand atop her book, and she looks down at him, her hair free from elaborate structure, loose around her shoulders. Her dress is half-fallen from her shoulder, and her mouth parted as she gasps. She stares at him. He stares at her.

After a moment, he picks her book up, and holds it out to her. “Lady,” he says, and then his words fail him. She hesitates, and then takes it from him, folds it to her chest.

“Sir,” she replies.

The following morning, she sits near enough to the window that he can hear what she reads aloud, and Garland marches his loop through her garden to the sound of her voice, and learns of countries far away, of history and lands in the sky, of science and politics and philosophy and art, and the months walk themselves by in the foliage that falls from the trees and grows again anew

 

 

When a nearby village is run out by goblins, Garland volunteers himself, rather than wait to be recruited. He has never desperately searched out recognition, but the chance to stand before the Princess again is enough for him.

He goes out as one among a dozen, and comes home one alone.

When he kneels before the throne, the Princess steps down, and takes his hands in hers. “Rise,” she tells him, and he is rendered dumbstruck by her force, the strength she exudes, the draw she pulls him with. He rises, but he knows not how. When he looks into her face, he sees himself reflected there, a ghost of the fear that has rattled him. “I,” she tells him, “Am glad you have returned safe.”

 

 

Garland kisses her proffered fingers at a ball when he has been asked to dance now his injuries are recovered, and she does not chastise him, lets him take her to the floor. He is clumsy, untrained in the steps, but she does not begrudge him, and corrects his grip, his tempo, until he cannot remember ever not-dancing with her.

He kisses her fingers again when she leaves his escort at her rooms, and when she does not pull them away, lingers.

 

 

He rides in the Princess’ name in a tourney, and she stills him when he bows before the throne, takes the ribbon from her hair, ties it from the horn atop his helmet.

“For good luck,” she says, and he wears it unthinking, untrusting, and lets victory come to him in battle, the best swordsman among all in Cornelia.

 

 

What is at first attempts to simply be assured a future as a knight becomes whispers of bravery, and Garland first finds himself loathe to dispute them; then, finds it expected of him. He leads battle after battle against the many enemies Cornelia has, and gains scars in equal measure to belief. When he comes back every time, sword drenched in blood and his remaining insecurities slowly being drained from him in the inexorable way that terror forces, the Princess is waiting for him. They call him her champion.

And then one night, when he walks her back to her rooms, and he bends to kiss her knuckles goodbye, her hand atop his wrist stills him.

A precipice yawns.

The kiss is stolen and hidden beneath the shadow of the stairwell, and it is unspoken, and he knows, he _knows_ —

 

 

Garland kisses her proffered fingers at a ball, and she pulls them back, laced with regret.

“You know,” Sara says, “We cannot do this.” Her hand in his is small and fragile. He feels hulking beside her, feels as if he is taking up too much space.

“I know,” he says, and they do not dance.

He walks her back to her room, her silent escort, and bows to her when she leaves, ascending the staircase, without even looking back.

 

 

Garland has heard so many men cry out as they die, heard so many monsters scream as they die, that he has come to expect it. He has forgotten that death can happen in silent and soundless and lonely places.

His heart breaks in silence, so quiet that he does not even notice it until it is over.

So quiet that he does not even notice when something Else moves in instead, and he finds himself no longer himself.

Until he is no longer there at all.

  

 

 

She does not look at him when he lays at her feet, dying.

When he shuts his eyes, he finds this is the most painful of all. That she cannot look at him, cannot bring herself to face him, knowing that this is a bed that they made together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When he opens his eyes, he finds himself laying on the ground where he closed them, two thousand years older, two thousand years younger. He is alone inside and out, his opponents gone, his regrets taken with them.

“Garland,” Sara says, and his hand is in hers. She lifts it to her mouth, her lips pressed to the knuckles of his armor, and does not move as he breathes. Breathes, again. Breathes the scent of her hair and the iron tang of blood. Breathes fresh air, and wonders how he stopped noticing when there was too much inside him, not enough.

Sara looks at him when he lays at her feet, living. His helmet, her ribbon torn from it in combat, laying at her feet, is gone from between them. There is nothing at all but this, and all that which hangs unspoken.

Once again, they stand on a precipice, beneath the shadow of a stairwell, and it is unspoken but he knows, he _knows_ —

And she looks into his eyes.

And he looks back into hers.

**Author's Note:**

> a bonus which came to mind as soon as i sat down to write the fic:
> 
>  


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